A Short Introduction To Allie Knight

So this new writing tool I'm using has a wooden floor background that looks like the unfinished, oiled, grimey floor that we have in the master bedroom right now. It makes me smile.

This is going to be a place where you can come and read about anything. I'll write things about the art I'm making and my processes. We'll dive into the projects we're working on and completing on a daily basis, very slowly, on our YouTube channel. I'll do my best to write thorough reviews about the places we stay, the food we eat, the cities we visit. I will commit to you, the Internet, and to you, the Octosquad, to inform you all on my experiences.

So let's start with an introduction. I'm Allie. One of two pieces of the Allie Knight and Steve duo. My job in this rabble rousing squad is to document as we go. Sometimes I'm very bad at it. Others, I can actually muster the strength to overcome some anxiety and capture our process deftly. Hopefully with some practice, we can work through those together. Please? That would be awesome if I could get your help and support on this one.

I attended University in Philadelphia downtown at UArts. I graduated with a Bachelor's in Crafts in 2006. I have done very little, if anything, professionally with the actual "Craft" part of my degree. I have, however, always had a passion for film. I've pretty much got my hands into anything I could to learn skills that would be beneficial for long term survival and sustainability. So, I have a class A CDL commercial driver's license. In case of the zombie apocalypse, I can drive anything. I also have a keen understanding of materials. This allows me to quickly judge a particular piece of construction and decide whether or not to risk using said construction.

So what am I doing now? Steve and I are renovating a 120 year old townhome in a small city in Pennsylvania. There is asbestos. There is also a lot of plaster. And some knob and tube wiring. We're replacing all of the electrical as I'm writing this. This afternoon in fact we had something pop in our office and it freaked me the fuck out. No sir. I'm not going to allow some old electrical work to ruin all of my electronica. I enjoy my computers immensely and would rather they not be subject to that sort of voltage abuse.

I'm not a great writer. I want to practice though, and I'll try to bring you some insightful and useful content. Instead of some drivel or a "buy now!" everything happiness plan. I'll actually provide you with some real advice and not some tell all book that would cost you $30.00 a year to subscribe to.

We do offer a way to support our work. If you find any of it useful, at the end of each post will be a button to buy us a coffee. I've read in some places that giving up caffeine would free my mind to persue more.. but I love my coffee just for the coffee, not the caffeine. I function without a coffee every morning as it is. We also have our Octosquad rewards program if you're interested in having access to a section of the website where we reveal more private and personal details about our process and ourselves. There's a great postcard club on there as well! We mail out a new postcard every month. And while there's a lot of anxiety tied up in it, I love sending mail to people. Mostly because I know how it makes me feel when I get mail I did or did not expect.

We also try to give you advice or review things I've found on Amazon. Or things we've found useful. This results in some Amazon affiliate rewards if you also purchase those products using our links. There's nothing extra you have to do or pay either. Just follow one of our referral links and go shopping on Amazon. We get credit for anything you buy on that trip to Amazon.

We do run a bi-weekly vlog YouTube channel. So if you want to watch our process and our trips one week at a time, you can check that out as well. I'm not going to say we make the best content on YouTube but we are authentic. We don't sugar coat our days. You see all of the pitfalls and process we go through, and have a much better idea of how long a project might take you if you worked on it everyday.. it creates a more realistic picture of what a renovation project might look like at your house. Instead of the edited before and afters we watch in half an hour on HGTV, these projects take weeks.

When I'm not driving or working on the house, sometimes I'm on Twitch. I will be doing mostly smaller art projects in my studio and streaming them a few times a week. These are also start to finish long projects. We like to set realistic expectations and allow people to watch the entire process, not just read a post about it in ten minutes. You lose perspective when you see only the finished product and not the process.

So I hope you support our journey. We will do our best to deliver realistic and helpful content as often as we can.

PS. Steve, this is the part where you should introduce yourself. Because I think you'll tell your story better than I will :)